Secession Petitions: Good PR But Bad Politics

And the Lord spoke unto Moses, go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord: "Let my people go ... " – Exodus 8:1

Tens of thousands of Americans are now petitioning the White House wanting to withdraw from the union. Although peoples and regions around the world are in the process of withdrawing from debt laden, failed central governments including Scotland, Venice, Catalonia, Bavaria, Flanders and others, it won't be as easy here in the USA. While the US petitions generate great PR for the legal right of secession, this is not the way a state or people legally withdraw from the US union.

First, to secede from the federal union on their own individuals must leave the US and renounce their citizenship, a very complicated and expensive process. Second, the legal way for states to withdraw is individually, state-by-state after conducting a state secession convention very much like a state constitutional convention on 10th Amendment issues.

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